


The Best Thing In The World

by momentinsubtext



Category: Doctor Who, Torchwood
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-28
Updated: 2009-09-28
Packaged: 2018-02-15 08:49:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2222889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/momentinsubtext/pseuds/momentinsubtext
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It ceased to be a coincidence when they found the third body; the resemblance wasn’t just striking, the wounds were identical. Not serial killer identical, either, Chula nanogene identical, which was never a good thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Best Thing In The World

**Author's Note:**

> Cross-posted from my Teaspoon account.

“Here and here,” Owen said, pointing to the temples of the victim in front of him. The wound appeared on the screen in hi-def. “This is where it injects the drug.” It was a ring, exactly one in in diameter, made of dozens of needle thin punctures that, upon closer inspection, went straight through the skunn and into the brain. “It’s a hallucinogen, but not one of ours.”  
  
“Ours?” Gwen asked, raising an eyebrow.  
  
“Earths,” Jack explained. “How can you tell?”  
  
“Do you really want me to explain it to you?”  
  
“Does your explanation have a lot of medical jargon in it?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“I’m good.”  
  
Owen rolled his eyes.  
  
“They didn’t struggle,” Tosh said. “None of them. Not even a little bit.”  
  
“That’s not the weirdest part,” Owen said. “There’s no medical reason for these people to be dead.”  
  
“But you just said-”  
  
“I know.” He shut off the screen and leaned across the table. “The puncture wounds occurred post-mortem. And the drug... it didn’t even raise their blood pressure. Nothing. It’s like it wasn’t even there.”  
  
“Then _why_ -” Jack asked slowly. “-are they _dead?_ ”  
  
“Yeah, I, uh, haven’t figured that bit out yet.”  
  
“They died of heartbreak,” a new voice said. All five Torchwood heads swivelled.  
  
“How did you get in here?” Owen demanded.  
  
“The door was open.” He descended the stairs. Jack inclined his head. “Jack,” he acknowledged. “I was just passing through, figured you could use some help.”  
  
“Doesn’t sound like you,” Jack said. “Not that I’m complaining. A visit is a visit.”  
  
“Jack,” Gwen asked. “Who is this man?”  
  
“It’s his Doctor,” Tosh said quietly, before Jack could answer; Jack just nodded. She looked at the Doctor. “You know what killed these people?”  
  
"Of course I do," the Doctor said, hopping up onto the table and swinging his legs. "It was a disaster on it's own planet."  
  
"What is it?"  
  
"Virtual reality. Combination of drugs and psychic energy. It's the last model they ever created." He paused. "It wiped them out." He hopped off the table and started pacing around it. "The drug is so addictive, once you get it in your system you can't live without it. Not even for a few seconds. At first the machines - well, I say machines - were only used on convicts, the elderly, people with terminal illnesses. People who were already slated for death. Then it hit the commercial market." He clapped his hands down on the table. Everyone back Jack jumped. "Three days. It took them _three days_ and every man, woman and child on the planet was hooked up. Another week and the planet was clean."  
  
"Ouch," Jack said.  
  
"But I don't understand," Gwen said. "If they knew it was going to kill them-"  
  
"It gets inside your head," the Doctor said. "And it gives you the best thing in the world. Everything you ever wanted, anything at all, it gives you that. And if you could have that, Gwen Cooper, if you could have the best thing in the world, just for a few days... well, you could die happy, couldn't you?"  
  
"But those people didn't die of shock," Owen pointed out. "And they didn't starve or dehydrate."  
  
"I told you-"  
  
"Bollocks. You can't die of a broken heart. It's not possible."  
  
The Doctor raised an eyebrow, then swung his arm out toward the rest of the Hub. " _This_ is your day job."  
  
"Fair point."  
  
"Thank you, Let me put this in words you can understand. The drug wasn't meant for human beings. So it gets inside your head, and it works for a while. But you people, you're so used to lies, eventually you see through it."  
  
"I don't-"  
  
" _Listen_. Because humans have an amazing ability to believe to contradictory things at the same time, but it's not perfect. It doesn't last. Your brain knows that what your senses are telling you is wrong, wrong, wrong. And it shuts down. And you're dead."  
  
"Let's pretend I believe you," Owen said. "And I don't, because that is patently ridiculous-"  
  
"Why do you lot say that, anyway? I mean, has someone actually gone to the patent office and-"  
  
"Doctor," Jack said.  
  
"Not the time. Right." He looked at Owen. "You were saying?"  
  
"Assuming you're right," Owen said. "What's it doing grabbing people off the streets? Last I checked, video games weren't meant to do that."  
  
"I think this is a bit more complex than Second Reality, Owen," Tosh said. She looked at the Doctor. "Is it sentient?"  
  
"Not in any way you'd understand."  
  
"Ooh, well, that's nice an' cryptic," Owen sneered.  
  
"Owen, shut up," Jack snapped. "How do we stop it?"  
  
"You're Torchwood, you figure that bit out."  
  
"Some help you are," Jack said.  
  
The Doctor shrugged. "Get me close enough for it to grab me and I'll try to turn it's psychic energy back on it."  
  
"And if you fail?"  
  
"I won't."  
  
"No offense, Doc, but I've pulled your perky little arse out of the fire enough times to know that your plans don't always turn out the way you intend."  
  
"Perky?" he asked, looking over his shoulder.  
  
Jack rolled his eyes. "Let it grab me, I'll keep it busy while you figure out how to contain it."  
  
"Jack-"  
  
"Doctor."  
  
The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck. "Do you know what you're volunteering for?"  
  
"The best thing in the world," Jack said, grinning. "Followed by yet another notch on the 'how many times I've died' bedpost."  
  
"Oh, you don't really _do_ that, that's so _tacky_ ," the Doctor said. He shook his head. "No. Wait. This is a bad idea, Jack."  
  
"Do you have a better one?"  
  
"I told you-"  
  
"No.Tosh, can you track it?"  
  
"Give me ten minutes."  
  
"Five."  
  
"Seven."  
  
"Go." Tosh went. "Ianto, take the Doctor to the Archives. See if you can't find something to contain this thing. Owen, Gwen, with me." He pushed his chair back and stood up. "Just in case it kills me before they find something. Come on, let's see what Tosh has for us."  
  
"It hasn't even been two minutes."  
  
"She'll be done." He bounded up the stairs. "Let's get moving, people." Owen rolled his eyes and followed, Gwen on his heels.

 

Ianto stood up slowly, pushed his chair in, and made his way around the table doing the same for the others.

"So, Ianto was it?"  
  
Ianto didn't answer immediately. "You were there," he said finally. "At the fall of Torchwood London. I saw you."  
  
"Who did you lose?"  
  
"My girlfriend. Lisa Hallet."  
  
"I'm sorry," the Doctor said, pulling Ianto into a hug. "I'm so sorry. If there's anything I can do, anything at all..."  
  
Ianto mumbled something into his jacket.  
  
"Oh, sorry," the Doctor said, letting him go. "What was that?"  
  
Ianto made a point of straightening his jacket. "Don't take Jack. Please."  
  
"Done." He clapped Ianto on the shoulder. "What say we go take a look at these Archives of yours now?"

 

They found Jack slumped against the side of a building in a dark alley about an hour later, an octopus-esque creature sitting on top of his head, two of it's tentacles resting on his temples. Owen's gun was trained on the octopus thing when they arrived.  
  
The Doctor crouched by his side, checking his pulse and breathing. He peered closely at Jack's eyes, darting back and forth behind his eyelids. "Drug's still working," he said, rocking back on his heels. "What do you suppose he's seeing?" Four pairs of eyes suddenly switched their focus to stare at him. "What?"  
  
"He's seeing you," Gwen said. The others nodded.  
  
"What?"  
  
"You really don't know, do you?" Tosh asked quietly.  
  
"Are you lot always this cryptic? Know _what?_ "  
  
"He's in love with you," Ianto said.  
  
"What, no witty response?" Owen sneered when the Doctor didn't say anything.  
  
" _Owen,_ " Gwen hissed. "Not helping."  
  
Owen shrugged.  
  
The Doctor ignored them, staring at Jack with an unreadable look on his face.  
  
"Doctor?" Tosh ventured a few seconds later. He glanced up at her. She nodded towards Jack. "We have to..."  
  
"Oh! Yes! Of course. Right. Let's get this thing contained." He leapt up and snatched the devices they'd brought out of Ianto's hands. He fiddled with them for a bit, then handed one back. "When I say, turn that dial there all the way."  
  
"Um, sure."  
  
"Good. Here goes nothing." He knelt down and pressed one end of the device he held to the side of the octopus thing, frowned and flipped it over. "Now." The device started to glow and whine. A second later he threw it on the ground. "Ow! That got really hot." He shook his hand, then turned his attention back to the octopus. He peeled the tentacles off one at a time and gingerly picked the thing up. "Toshiko."  
  
"I've got it," she said, taking it from him and dropping it into a box. At which point Jack started convulsing.  
  
"Shit!" Owen said.  
  
"I told you the withdrawal was quick," the Doctor said, jumping back to avoid Jack's flailing limbs. "Hold him still!"  
  
"Why?" Gwen asked, moving with the others to obey. "Won't he just wake up in a few minute anyway?"  
  
"Do it. The drug is dissolving but it's still _active._ "  
  
"So?"  
  
" _So_ , psychic energy!"  
  
"What?"  
  
But the Doctor's fingers had found Jack's temples and his eyes were closed. Jack's convulsions didn't stop but the lessened enough that the others let him go and moved to a safe distance just in case. The pain that had contorted his features ebbed away in seconds.  
  
Less than five minutes later he gasped back to life, knocking the Doctor off balance.  
  
"Oof," he said, falling against Jack's chest. "I think I just got psychic whiplash."  
  
"Sorry."  
  
The Doctor got to his feet and pulled Jack up with him. "Jack," he said before the other man could get a word in. "You know I can be incredibly dense sometimes, right?"  
  
"Um... is this a trick question?"  
  
"No," the Doctor said, cupping his face in his hands. "All the terrible things I've done to you... I don't understand why you don't hate me."  
  
"Yes you do," Jack countered, not telling him not to blame himself because he knew it would do no good.  
  
"Yes, I do," the Doctor admitted, thumbs stroking Jack's cheeks lightly.  
  
"Are you going to kiss me?" Jack asked uncertainly.  
  
"Sure, why not," he said with a shrug. Before Jack had time to comment on his nonchalant reply, he had his tongue down the other man's throat and was busily trying to find out whether either of them actually _needed_ oxygen to live. As it turned out, they did. Eventually.  
  
"Twelve minutes, thirty-eight seconds," Ianto announced neutrally.  
  
"That's got to be a record," Owen said.  
  
"That felt like goodbye," Jack said softly.  
  
"Yeah," the Doctor said. He nodded in Ianto's direction. "I've promised you're young man there I'd let him keep you for a while."  
  
"The things I could say to that," Jack said, grinning.  
  
"I wouldn't," the Doctor warned, grinning back. He sombered quickly. "I'm coming back for you."  
  
"I know." He kissed the corner of the Doctor's mouth. "I've waited a hundred odd years, I can wait a few more."  
  
"I'd hardly call what you've been doing waiting," the Doctor said dryly.  
  
"In my own way-" Jack started.  
  
"If you start singing, I swear I'll kill you again."  
  
"Contrary to popular belief, I'm not a walking stereotype."  
  
"I'm glad," the Doctor said, then frowned. "It would be rude of me to tell you to call me when your boyfriend dies, right?"  
  
Jack was startled into laughter. "Yes. Very. But I know what you mean. And I will."  
  
"Good." He stepped backwards into the dark alley and a few seconds later the Tardis wheezed out of existence.  
  
Jack stared into the empty alley a minute longer, then turned and pulled Ianto into a passionate snog.  
  
"Oh, for heavens sake!" Owen complained.  
  
Without actually breaking the kiss, Jack pointed toward daylight and the rest of his team obediently scampered out of the alley, dragging the containment box with them.


End file.
